


The Stars Look Very Different Today

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [111]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Protective Mycroft, Racist Language, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-27 00:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7597006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft, Sally and their nearly-7-year-old son Ford are taking a rare holiday in Los Angeles. The first day they spend with Mary, Nirupa and Violet. Ford learns about LA. Mycroft learns more about his family, and about being a parent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Le Brea Tar Pits

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on holidays in the US at the moment - just took in comic con! I spent my first week seeing Science LA, and these scenes are based on places I visited then.
> 
> The expression 'Museum hands, museum voices!' was overheard in the Petersen Automotive Museum (which boasts a Batmobile and the Delorean from Back to the Future!) and I loved it.

Inside the building, the rules were very clear.

“Museum hands, museum voices,” said Mycroft firmly. Ford and Violet clasped their hands behinds their backs and beamed up at him with tight-pressed lips and cherubic faces. Very satisfactory.

When Mary and Nirupa followed suit it was less satisfactory. Mycroft was hardly used to being mocked in this fashion. He knew what these two were like, of course – easily as recalcitrant as Sherlock and John – but dealing with it personally was a rare trial.

Then Sally kissed his cheek and squeezed his hand and turned to the motley crew assembled on the floor of the La Brea Tar Pits museum and told them, “You’re hilarious, but if you’re not on your best behaviour no-one gets ice cream afterwards.”

Violet gazed up at her mother and Rupe with huge eyes. “Be good, Mummy.”

Mary dimpled impishly at Sally. “You’re a dirty fighter, Sally Donovan.”

Sally smiled sweetly back. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Mary bent to her daughter and said in a stage-whisper, “We’ll be good, won’t we?”

Violet nodded vigorously. Beside her, Ford also nodded vigorously. He also bounced on his toes. His little body was practically vibrating with excitement. He was on _holiday_! With Mummy and Daddy! Together! And Violet! And Mary and Rupe! In _America_! **_At a dinosaur museum_**!

Mycroft extended his hand to Ford and Ford latched on.

“Would you like to see the dinosaurs now?” Mycroft asked.

Ford nodded super hard and held Daddy’s hand very very very tightly. “Museum hands, museum voices,” he whispered in a squeak.

“Good boy.”

The indoor part went very well, considering how excited the children were. They looked at the giant sloth skeleton and the mastodon skeleton and the sabre toothed tiger skeletons that weren’t really tigers though they were part of the cat family; and the giant camel skeleton because camels actually evolved in the Americas and only went to the Middle East by crossing the land bridge.

Everyone learned all of this because Ford read aloud every information panel in a breathless museum-voice whisper, and so shared the exciting knowledge that the skeletons of predators and scavengers outnumbered prey ten-to-one because the cries of trapped herbivores acted like a honey trap to other things and it was _thrilling._

Violet and Ford held hands between exhibits, dragging each other to the bones they found most intriguing and exciting. They stopped at every education station so the volunteers could explain about bones and the tar pits not really being tar but asphalt and what scientists had been able to learn from the creatures and plants they’d found within the pits.

Mycroft had to field the occasional phone call but he had gone to considerable effort to ensure this week with his family was free of distraction. That Mary and Nirupa had brought Violet with them to Los Angeles for a conference was serendipitous, because Sherrinford was generally more relaxed and happy when he had his best friend, the rambunctious Violet, at his side. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Mycroft wondered how different Sherlock’s childhood might have been – or his own – with such a steadfast friend.

Still, he was not terribly sorry they would be going home in a few days. Mycroft regarded the two women well, even in the face of the irrepressible humour, but was looking forward to having quiet time alone with Sherrinford and Sally.

He watched Sherrinford excitedly encouraging Sally to pet a fossilised bison skull, offered for the purpose by a volunteer, and thought;  _not in childhood, no, but now I have my steadfast friend._

Sherrinford forgot the _museum hands, museum voices_ mantra so far as to wriggle close enough to lay his cheek against the top of the bison skull, petting the sides of it with his sensitive fingers. His little boy sighed happily. The volunteer seemed bemused but not alarmed.

Violet put her face very close to Sherrinford’s. “You love the bones,” she breathed at him. He nodded, his cheek still pressed to the skull. “Why?”

He opened his brown eyes to look at her and said, smiling. “They’re so old. They’re older than Mrs H. They’re older than our house. And even though they’re really old and only bones, they tell a story. It’s just like Daddy and Sherlock say. Everything tells a story when you know how to look at it.”

Violet blinked owlishly at him and then pressed her forehead to Sherrinford’s.

“I love the bones too,” she said.

After the inside part of the museum, the outside tour of the grounds and pits occurred and all bets were off. Ford and Violet ran madly all over the place. Ford lost his new La Brea pits hat in a small fenced off section, smearing it in asphalet where it bubbled viscously up in the soil. Mycroft had to retrieve the hat with his ubiquitous umbrella, resulting in a faint smear of asphalt on the tip. A flash of irritation was soothed when Sally placed a hand on his wrist.

Mycroft looked at his son; black-smudged baseball cap on his head, black curls sticking out the back, a huge smile on his face. Giggling with Violet and then his fingers reaching up to pat the black patch on the hat.

“My hat tells a story now!” he crowed.

“Once upon a time, Ford Holmes lost his hat in a tarpit…”

“Asphalt,” said Ford.

“… in some asphalt but then his daddy, who is a super important secret spyman, saved it.”

“The end!” shouted Ford, throwing his hands up in triumph.

The children giggled.

Mycroft held Sally’s hand and looked at his umbrella, which concealed a sword, and thought of the stories it told: of him; of him and Sally; now of him and Sherrinford.

“I know it’s not your usual thing, but are you having a good day?” Sally asked him.

“A splendid day,” he said. “You?”

“The best. And now we can have ice cream.”

She shared hers with him, as she always did.


	2. The Grammy Museum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet and her mothers have returned to London, so Mycroft and Sally take Ford to the Grammy Museum to cheer him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My husband and I sang Yellow Submarine in the booth with Ringo Starr at the Grammy Museum. We were awful. It was hilarious good fun!

Ford was sad after Violet went home to London with Mary and Nirupa, so Sally and Mycroft took him to the Grammy Museum for the Beatles exhibition. Mrs Hudson had been teaching Ford every single song, which was wildly adorable or thoroughly aggravating, depending on the day.

Today leaned towards ‘wildly adorable’, with the three of them squished into the Ringo Starr booth singing Yellow Submarine at the top of their lungs. Sally had begged off to begin with – she was tone deaf, unlike her husband and son, and self-conscious about it – but Sherrinford and then Mycroft had insisted that a joyful noise was required. So Mycroft held Sherrinford on his hip and Sally stood right beside them and they shout-sang the silly song into the microphone, and played the dreadful thing back and they all laughed at how terrible and perfect it was. Sherrinford had one skinny arm around his father’s neck, the other around his mother’s, and he burrowed his face into his father’s shoulder.

“Daddy?”

“Yes darling?”

“I don’t want to live in a yellow submarine. Not even if it was _orange_. I like London.”

“Then we’ll live in London.”

“But could we take a holiday in a yellow submarine?”

“The King needs all the submarines, sweetie,” said Sally while Mycroft considered how it might be managed.

“Oh.” Ford blinked, but didn’t seem bothered, really. His eyes began to drift shut, suddenly tired. “Maybe a big orange bus? With us and Violet and Sherlock and John and everybody?”

Mycroft, who couldn’t think of anything more awful, kissed his son’s brow and said, “Perhaps.”


	3. Griffith Observatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Mycroft has a crisis to manage, Sally takes Ford to the Griffith Observatory, where they have an unpleasant encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some racist ugliness. :(

The crisis was certainly critical enough, but Mycroft Holmes, while nominally indispensable, was excellent at delegation when it was at all possible. Nevertheless, the management of this particular contretemps required several intensive hours at the hotel suite with three computers, four telephones, and, ultimately, surprisingly little bribery.  At the words ‘trained cormorant’, Sherlock’s interest had perked up considerably.

Nonetheless, if a visit to the Griffith Observatory was to fit into the week’s itinerary, Mycroft would have to miss it.

His wife and son made an adventure of the necessity, catching public transport as close as possible and then an Uber right up to the front lawn of the beautiful building. Inside, Ford hung over the brass rails to watch the golden Foucault pendulum swinging its graceful proof of the Earth’s rotation. Sally pointed out their distorted reflections in the surface of the orb. At Tesla’s coil, Ford couldn’t help holding his hands right up in the air and waggling his fingers in excitement, as though by doing so he could attract the blue lightning that arced within the cage, to light up his eyes like it lit up the neon sign.

The science held Ford enthralled, and his mother too, for Sally Donovan was not devoid of a sense of wonder. The planetarium took her back to her own childhood too, sitting with her father at the London Planetarium, before it closed, staring wide-eyed at the stars, learning the constellations.

It should have been a happy day.

When Sally and Sherrinford returned from the expedition, both fractious, Mycroft was only a little guiltily relieved he’d merely had an international crisis to deal with. He could certainly mete out discipline as required with his son, but he loathed the necessity.

The necessity hovered, however. Sherrinford stomped into the room, his heavy tread theatrical yet genuine, right into the corner of the room, where he promptly crouched and folded his arms over his head.

“Sherrinford?”

“ _I DON’T WANT TO GO ANYWAY!”_ Sherrinford declared angrily.

“Go where?”

“ANYWHERE!”

Mycroft’s sharp eyes examined his son, then his wife. Sally was exasperated, exhausted, furious. Hurt. Sherrinford: hurt, too. Angry. Defiant.

“What happened?” Mycroft asked Sally crisply.

“Ford had a run-in with another boy,” she replied tersely, “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. What happened?”

Sally’s arms were folded now. “No, it’s not fine,” she agreed, “But it’s done now, and the boy apologised, and Ford apo-”

“He didn’t mean it, though,” Ford said, his voice high with outrage and indignation. “He said sorry but he said it the way John says it after he swears at people who are mean to Sherlock. So I said sorry that way too and I’m not sorry either. He _needed_ punching!”

That right there was pure John Watson, and Mycroft was going to have an ice cold word with him, once Sally was done shouting at the idiot.

Unless, of course, the boy in question _had_ really needed punching.

“Ford,” Sally said sharply, “What did I say about fighting?”

“It’s for grown-ups,” was the surly reply, “And only for work, and not for little boys and girls, but Mummy!” Now his voice rose with the heartbreak and terrible injustice of it all, “The sign said I was allowed to touch it! I was good! Museum hands, museum voice! I was quiet and I was allowed to touch! The sign said!” Fat tears welled in his eyes.

“I know, sweetheart.”

Mycroft was of the sudden and firm conviction that whoever had led to the sadness in her voice and the tears in Sherrinford’s eyes very much _indeed_ needed punching.

“From the start, please.”

“Ford found the slice of Mars rock they have on display at the observatory…”

“The sign said I could touch it!”

“Don’t interrupt me while I’m telling your father what happened,” said Sally firmly, “It’s rude.”

Ford bit his lip.

“As Ford says, the sign encourages people to touch it, and the moon rock next to it, which was fine, but another child wanted to have a go…”

“I was allowed to touch it!”

Mycroft thought of Sherrinford rubbing his cheek against the bison skull, and imagined his boy there, fingers on the precious stone from another planet, becoming mesmerised by the tactility and by the very notion of a fragment of stone from outer space, by the _story_ in it. Taking too long. It was six-year-old Sherlock at the Natural History Museum all over again.

“Yes, Ford,” Sally was saying, “But other people wanted to touch it too.”

“He should have asked!”

“He did ask, Ford. You didn’t hear him.”

“He didn’t have to be mean!”

“No, honey. He didn’t have to be mean.”

“He said I wouldn’t be allowed to go to Mars! Not ever!”

“I know, and that was mean, but he’s wrong. You shouldn’t have hit him.”

Mycroft was puzzled now. “What on earth did the child mean? Great Britain hasn’t a separate space program but we participate in the European Space Agency. It will be competitive and difficult, certainly, but…”

“That’s not what he meant,” said Sally quietly.

“Well, what _did_ he mean?”

“He was a few years older than Ford. Nine. Bossy. Blond. Caucasian.” She shrugged. _Par for the course_ , she seemed to say.

“He called me a stupid ape,” said Ford indignantly, “And I told him I was _Homo sapiens_ which is in the _Hominidae_ family but not the same as apes. He said I talked funny so I must be _really_ stupid, and I said I was English, and he called me a liar and said I must be from a poor family if we couldn’t afford to live in America, so I called _him_ stupid because that wasn’t even _logical_ , and then he said they didn’t need janitors in space,” blurted Ford, “And I told him janitor was a fancy word for cleaner and that cleaners are important in space because a spaceship has to be really tidy or the spaceship and the astronauts can get broken, and I said I was going to be a scientist and he laughed and said they don’t let stupid janitors be scientists and I told him they didn’t let people who couldn’t do mathematics be scientists or into space either and I knew he was bad at mathematics because I’d seen him not count his change properly in the cafeteria before, and then he called me a… a word that didn’t sound nice and it made Mummy mad, so I told him to take it back and he laughed at me again and so I hit him on the chest to make him stop.”

As the meaning behind Sherrinford’s story slid into place, Mycroft’s jaw tightened. As Sally knelt beside their son and pulled their distressed child into her embrace he was aware of a completely out of proportion desire to assemble intelligence on this _nine-year-old, blond, Caucasian boy_ , and his family, and if not send a black ops squad then at least arrange a personal and very pointed visit…

“The boy’s parents were mortified,” Sally’s eyes met his, as though she knew these thoughts were unfolding, “They couldn’t stop apologising. They made their son apologise too, though Ford’s right. He was much too angry to be sorry. I told Ford to apologise for hitting him, which he did but he obviously wasn’t sorry either. I’ve been trying to talk to him about it the whole way home.”

Mycroft could see the journey in his mind’s eye. Sherrinford’s stubborn angry mood, so very like the surly tantrums Sherlock used to have, fuelled by a profound sense of unfairness and the nagging fear that the world would never have a place for him. Sally, speaking sternly but calmly and softly, but with growing frustration as all the talk led her precisely nowhere. And there was other pain underneath all of that, too.

Mycroft looked at his son, who peeked back at him.

“Sherrinford,” Mycroft said calmly, coolly, “I understand you were frustrated and upset, but you have upset your mother, and you have disappointed me. Do you know why?”

Sherrinford scowled at him.

“I would like you to try to answer the question, Sherrinford. It’s important to understand the impact of our actions. If it helps you, you should know that I’ve also had to analyse my behaviour in this fashion. Everyone must learn.”

Sherrinford gave him a more serious look then, then looked at his mother. Mycroft could see their boy finally seeing how tense, how upset she was.

“Mummy…”

“It’s all right sweetheart. Do you know why I’m upset?”

“I was mean to you.” He sounded so ashamed.

“That’s part of it, but not all of it, baby.”

“And because he was mean to me, and you don’t like it when people are mean to me. But you don’t like me to be mean back to them because mean plus mean does not equal fair.”

“That’s right, Ford. Mean plus mean just hurts everyone.”

“I’m sorry, Mummy.”

“I know, baby.” She kissed his brow. “I know it’s hard. We’ll do better next time, yeah?”

He nodded, and so Mycroft took up the second part of his question. “Any why am I disappointed?”

Sherrinford looked terribly abashed. “Because I did mean plus mean instead of thinking, so I upset Mummy and I made things worse instead of better. I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Mycroft knelt on the floor (much harder to do these days, but sometimes dignity and comfort were willingly sacrificed for deeper understanding) and placed his hands on Sherrinford’s shoulders.

“I love you, Sherrinford. I want you to be happy, but I know that it can be difficult. We have busy brains, you and me and Sherlock, and so we have to work a little harder when other people have brains that aren’t so busy. We must control our tempers. Even with those who… need punching. That boy wanted his turn with the rock from Mars. I know you didn’t hear him ask, but that is a reminder to pay attention to your environment. What should you have said?”

“I should have said sorry,” said Sherrinford in a small voice.

“And then?”

“Moved so he could have a turn.”

“And?”

“Ignored him. But he was _mean_ …”

“It’s true, he was very mean. That is not an excuse for you to become mean too, is it?”

“John sometimes hits people who are mean to Sherlock.”

“Dr Watson sometimes hits people to defend Sherlock in their line of work, when people are trying to _hurt_ Sherlock. It is a very different thing, which I am sure you understand.”

Sherrinford’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Yes, Daddy.”

“What do you have to say?”

“Sorry I had a tantrum, Mummy. I won’t do it again.”

Sally hugged her boy hard and kissed his curls. “Good boy. Remember and learn.”

“Yes, Mummy. But it’s not true is it? I can still go to space and be a scientist even if I’m a-a-a-a _pubehead_? I could be a janitor, I guess. Janitors in space are really, really important because things have to be tidy on a space station or debris can damage the ship or hurt the astronauts so I can do that, I’d be very good at that, my room is always very tidy, isn’t it?”

Mycroft’s brain had tripped and stuck on the epithet, and on the way Sally winced when Sherrinford said it.

“You _are_ very tidy,” Sally was saying, “But you’re going to be a scientist, baby, I promise.”

Mycroft ran his fingers over Sherrinford’s scalp, through his beautiful soft black curls. He knew why Sally wasn’t repeating the names that awful boy had used. He could hardly bring himself to think them, either. But to repeat them would be to fix them in Sherrinford’s head as words used against him. Sherrinford knew their use had upset Sally, but not why. Perhaps more discussion would be required later. He would broach it with Sally once Sherrinford was in bed.

Mycroft had always understood, in an academic sense, that the colour of Sherrinford’s skin could draw a certain kind of attention. He knew that Sally had faced similar attitudes, from grown adults, in her career as a policewoman before joining him; that some people within the Department and without continued to make similar errors. Sally was very good now at using the way people underestimated her or perceived her in certain ways in their work.

But for all his sharp intellect, Mycroft had never understood properly, _deep-in-his-bones_ properly, what Sally, and now their son, might face so casually. He had always assumed, when he considered it at all, that he would protect Sherrinford from any such ugly absurdity, in the unlikely event it occurred. It had never occurred to him that he _couldn’t_. How utterly appalling that people felt they had the freedom to say such things. How much worse than appalling that his son should ever _believe_ them.

He wondered if Sally had ever believed them.

“Ford,” Sally said to their Sherrinford, “You can do exactly anything and everything you want to do with your life, and Mummy and Daddy will help you every step of the way. Don’t believe anyone who says you can’t. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Ford. He looked at his parents, pleading. “Does that mean I can still be a scientist in space?”

“Absolutely,” Mycroft promised him.  "You will be the very best scientist on the most important missions. You will one day have your very own piece of Mars."

Sherrinford, the tracks of dried tears on his cheeks, grinned at his Mummy and Daddy. "I'll bring some back for you too!"

Sometimes, Mycroft Holmes was very tempted to set the world on fire to see if they could start from scratch. He hoped that awful boy’s parents had given him a thrashing.


	4. El Pueblo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford's become a bit obsessed about hats, and Sally needs to talk to him about family history and hair.

The next day, Ford seemed to have put the Observatory incident behind him, and though he was quiet, he often was when not spurred out of his habitual solemnity by science, games with his family or Violet.

Sally wasn’t alarmed when Ford insisted on sleeping in his La Brea baseball cap – he was as prone to unreasoned clothing obsessions as the next kid – or even when he kept it on for his bath, for breakfast or for the Uber Black trip out to El Pueblo to explore the early Spanish history of Los Angeles.

Sally appreciated the political ramifications as well as the art of Sequieros’s rediscovered America Tropical mural – she’d become a much more politically attuned creature since joining Mycroft’s department – and was wryly amused by Mycroft’s commentary on what he knew of its history of being painted over and forgotten, which was considerable, detailed and not common knowledge.

Having the Holmes gift for languages - and encouraged in learning them by Mycroft, Sherlock and Nirupa - Ford listened intently to the conversations in Spanish around him and charmed everyone around with his serious efforts at shopping. He bought a painted day-of-the-dead ceramic skull for Sherlock, a bracelet made of red skulls for Violet, an orange ukulele for John, bright T-shirts for Mary and Nirupa, an exuberant scarf for Mrs Hudson and numerous trinkets for other friends and family.

He went away with Mycroft for a little while to find something for his mother (another bright scarf, because Mummy liked scarves), then joined Sally to choose a present for his father (a blue tie decorated with a skeleton in a top hat, bow tie and cane) while Mycroft took a phone call.

“Do you see something you’d like, sweetie? There’s a T shirt with a pretty skull on it. Would you like that?” Sally asked him. Ford was staring intently at a pile of garish sombreros. He had that fiercely thoughtful look on his face that signified he was working through a problem.

Ford reached for a massive multi-coloured sombrero and peered at it. Then, as quickly as possible, he whipped off his cap and tugged on the sombrero. He squinted at a reflection of himself in some glass and patted at the few dark curls that could still be seen behind his ears.

Sally’s heart sank.

“Sweetie, do you want to cover up your hair?”

Ford continued to stare at his reflection.

“Ford, baby.” She placed a hand on his back to get his attention. “Are you covering up your lovely hair?”

He blinked. “Pube means pubic,” he said in a small, serious voice. “I looked it up. He meant I have hair like between legs, like you and Daddy have. It’s just hair and it’s just an-nantomy and that’s not a bad thing but he meant it like a bad thing.”

Sally knelt on the ground beside him and stared into the reflection with him.

“Do you like my hair?” she asked him.

“Your hair is beautiful,” he said, reaching up to run his fingers through her dark, frizzy curls, like he often did when he sat in her lap.

She took off the sombrero and they both stared at their hair together. “Your hair is like my hair,” she said. “It goes with having dark skin, sometimes.”

Ford said nothing.

“That boy said cruel things because he wanted to make you feel bad,” said Sally, still with her cheek pressed to his as they looked at their reflections. “But just because he said it, it doesn’t make it true. Your hair is lovely. It’s my hair, and it’s your grandfather’s hair.”

“Grandpa Roland, like in the pictures?” He’d seen photographs of Sally’s father – a big, smiling man with curly hair and arms like he could hold up the world if he had to; a black Atlas.

“That’s right. Grandpa Roland’s father was from Nigeria and his mother was from the West Indies, which is where we get our skin and our hair. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father was a mechanic, and they worked very hard when they came to the United Kingdom. They were very proud of Grandpa Roland when he became an engineer for the trains. I want you to remember that you should be very proud of where you come from: Daddy and Sherlock, but me and Grandpa Roland and Grandma Jenny, and Great Grandpa George and Great Grandma Vinette too. They were all smart, strong people who made good lives, and who helped to make you.”

Ford patted his own curls. “And they had curly hair like ours?”

“George and Vinette both had curly hair like ours. Grandma Jenny’s was long and straight like Nirupa’s, but brown. My mother was white – Caucasian – like Daddy and Sherlock.”

Ford looked at the two of them a little longer in the reflection and then put the sombrero back on the pile. He turned to his mother.

“Can I have an orange T-shirt with a skull on it, Mummy?”

“Of course you can, sweetheart.” Sally hugged him tightly. "And I'll get one too."

"We can be extra pretty together in orange and our curly hair!"

"Yes, we can."

Sally didn't cry. She didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage you to read about the Sequeiros mural, [ La American Tropical, and its history.](http://www.olvera-street.com/-Siqueiros-Mural/-siqueiros-mural.html)


	5. Union Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft and Ford are waiting for Sally at Union Station. In between thinky thoughts, they hear a man playing the piano, set up for the public, in the station. A musical interlude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A man was playing the piano at Union Station the day I was there. The little garden at the station is a surprisingly tranquil little oasis too. In short, i really like Union Station.

Mycroft sat in the walled garden at Union Station, Sherrinford at his side, and contemplated, not for the first time, the ways in which allowing love to flourish could change a person. He was still himself, of course, in the most fundamental of ways.  But he was also this – a man wearing an appalling tie depicting a skeleton in formal dress, solely for the reason that his son had chosen it for him. He was a man of power sitting quietly in a quiet, walled green garden, listening to a water fountain burble soothingly, because he’d learned that just because he _could_ endure the crowds and heat of El Pueblo in the summer, that didn’t mean he _had_ to, and that his extraordinary wife was more than capable of taking the shopping to the limousine and arranging for the car to come and collect her family.

Mycroft glanced down at the top of his son’s head. Sherrinford sat on the bench, swinging his feet, gazing in serious contemplation at a palm tree. His boy had been fractious this morning, oddly reluctant to reveal his hair, the whole incident with that puerile, unpleasant taunt tainting the atmosphere. Now, Sherrinford’s asphalt-stained baseball cap was on his head one more, but tilted back at a more jaunty angle. It reminded Mycroft of Sherlock at that age, emerging from a horrible woollen beany after a week of sulking over a mean-spirited comment from their father. Mycroft couldn’t even remember what it had been, and it hardly mattered any more. Sherlock wore his hair in a defiantly flamboyant manner now. What had the children called it? _Pretty fucking princess hair_.

Mycroft smiled.

“Daddy, can we go and listen to the piano man?”

Mycroft would rather have stayed in the garden – this soothing, green, cool, quiet garden – but he too could hear the music drifting through the closed doors, and the player displayed considerable skill. Might be diverting to watch until Sally arrived, and it was good for Sherrinford to see how other pianists approached the instrument. Holding hands with Sherrinford, they walked across the path and through the doors into the high-vaulted ceiling of Union Station.

Although busy, this waiting area was cool and pleasant. The black upright piano, set up with an invitation that any were welcome to play it, was currently under the command of an African American man in his sixties. Unemployed, Mycroft noted. Not Entirely broke but frugal and very careful with his remaining funds: slightly-too-small suit, second hand but carefully cleaned and pressed; old shoes repaired and clean, in good condition for their age. Not travelling by train today, no. Here solely to play this piano. Former professional musician. Former serviceman, army most likely. Former drug addict. _Ah_.

He made a rapid secondary assessment, and came up with _safe enough for now_ , and so he didn’t pull Sherrinford away when his son stood close to watch the man play. Mycroft’s hands flexed around the handle of his umbrella, though. Not necessary, obviously. And yet, when it came to Sherrinford, _always prepared_ never seemed to be prepared enough. As so often, it hadn’t been with Sherlock.

As Sherrinford observed the man’s fingers flying across the keyboard, his own little fingers mimicking the movement in the air in front of him, Mycroft recalled Sally’s words of the previous evening.

“It’s weird, seeing how Ford reacts to bullying and realising I’m seeing Sherlock’s behaviour when I first knew him through an entirely different filter. Defensive more than deliberately cruel, I mean. ”

Mycroft knew that by ‘weird’ she meant ‘uncomfortable’ and also ‘unpleasantly educational’.

“I’ll give this to Sherlock,” she’d continued. “Whenever he was letting the insults fly, he only ever made it personal.” At Mycroft’s expression – he almost but did not quite catch her meaning – she expanded. “At school, at university and then at the Met, there were always those who threw insults around. If they were having a go at the white kids, it was….very individual. About their individual habits and histories. But often with me, they were general. They said things about my gender, about my blackness. I never complained, not once I joined the police force. You had to get on, get along, and the worse offenders always seemed to have backers higher up, telling you that it was just a joke, don’t be so sensitive. So I wore it and I got on to get along. The first time Sherlock and I ever pissed each other off, he never did that. It was always and only ever exactly about me. Not about being a woman. Not about being black. Just about being me. It drove me mad, but it was in a way almost flattering. That he was paying attention.”

She’d pulled a face then, and laughed wryly, and said, “Who knew any of us would ever be here? And I look at that horrible boy who responded to Ford being Ford with that stupid, racist bullshit, and then I look at Ford reading that kid and insulting him back with _you can’t do mathematics_ , and everything Sherlock ever did looks different.”

A sigh. She’d leaned against him, and Mycroft had taken her in his arms and kissed the top of her head – her own beautiful black curls – and said, “It’s wrong that I’m proud of him for defending himself like that. I know it’s wrong. It’s wrong that Ford hit him. But part of me wanted to take that little shit and smack his arse till he howled, for what he said.”

“It can still be arranged.”

Sally had laughed. “Don’t you dare.”

“It’s easily done, and nobody would ever know.” He was smiling that only-for-her smile. She was the only one he ever teased without malice or thought for gain. He just liked the innocent-wickedness of being teasing with this person who didn’t take him seriously but also didn’t seek for weakness in him.

“It’s a good thing I know you’re mostly joking. It’s too tempting a proposal. Here. Take my mind off your appealingly wicked propositions, tempter.”

 Then Mycroft noticed that the piano player was watching Sherrinford’s fingers dance in the air. Mycroft still read not dangerous, but was nevertheless braced.

“You play, son?” the man asked Sherrinford, still playing.

Sherrinford nodded.

“Show me.”

He budged up on the stool and Sherrinford sat beside him before Mycroft could stop him.

Sherrinford spread his hands on the keyboard and began to play. Handel’s Water Music, arranged for piano. It was a difficult piece for a little boy, but not really for Sherrinford, who liked to play it in tandem with Mycroft at home (Mycroft plays a harmony at the left while Sherrinford takes on the higher octaves) and also sometimes with Sherlock and his violin, another instrument Sherrinford was learning. John had been known to improvise a guitar part for it.

 _He’s homesick_ , Mycroft thought. _And so am I._

The out-of-work pianist nodded thoughtfully along with Sherrinford’s efforts. “That’s very fine playing, son.”

“I’m not your son,” said Ford in his quiet but practical way, “That’s my Daddy. I’m Ford.”

“Well, hello Ford, I’m Charlie.” The shook hands formally. “And you’re a very fine pianist. Who taught you to play?”

“Daddy,” said Ford, “Mummy says he has magic hands, but he doesn’t take coins out of my ears like Uncle Greg does. I know that’s only a trick, though.”

“You’re a smart boy.”

“Hmm.”

Charlie the Pianist looked at Mycroft. “Want to play? More Handel, or maybe Bach? Or can you tickle out some jazz? You look like a man who would appreciate Thelonius Monk.”

Mycroft inclined his head in agreement. Sherrinford leapt up from his seat and pushed Mycroft into his place, then stood between his father’s knees, his hands on the keyboard. Grinning to himself, Sherrinford played the simple opening notes of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which he once heard the protégé Emily Bear play. He'd asked Mycroft to teach it to him, and they'd learned it together as a surprise for Sally. Now, he and Mycroft played it together for Charlie.

Charlie watched with the broadest grin and then shot his cuffs and placed his hands on the far end of the keys and joined with flashing fingers and improvisational glee.

*

Sally walked into Union Station and up to the piano where her husband and son sat playing Duke Ellington classics along with a stranger. The piece came to an end and she heard, as she reached them, Ford saying to the man:

“If I can’t go to Mars maybe I’ll play piano like you. Did you stop playing all the time when you got lonely?”

“Lonely?” the man said.

Ford reached out and patted the man’s arms above his too-short jacket. “You’ve got marks like Sherlock does, and he says he used to do that when he was lonely, but then he stopped; and he stopped doing it a long time ago because he realised it wouldn’t stop him being lonely, it only stopped him remembering that he was, and then he got really sick. And then he said it was after he stopped making the marks that he started doing things again and he made friends even though he didn’t know that’s what he was doing, and then John moved in and they met Mary and Nirupa and now he hasn’t got any time to be lonely any more because even when he wants to be by himself and alone, we’re all there in his head with him so he doesn’t feel lonely at all now and he never wants to mark himself at all. So I thought maybe you got lonely and that’s why you’ve got scars like his, and if it was, I thought I should tell you that Sherlock thinks that if you stop hiding from being lonely that maybe you can find ways to make friends even when you don’t know that’s what you’re doing.”

Sally froze. She saw Mycroft freeze. There was a breathless second of waiting for this man to take offense at Ford seeing him, and then saying what he saw.

“Well, this Sherlock of yours is a smart man, and you are a very clever young man yourself," said Charlie with a thoughtful kind of care, "I haven’t played for a living for a long time because I made some very bad and very stupid decisions. You could say I made myself lonely, and then I made myself even lonelier and drove away all the people who loved me. Finally I realised that… making scars, as you call it, only made it worse. So now I’m trying very hard to not to make any more scars. When I’m afraid I might, I come here and play the piano. Who knows, maybe I’ll make some surprise friends.” He smiled. Sadly, it seemed to Sally.

Ford nodded seriously. “Friends are good. My best friend is Violet and I miss her but I’m going home soon and I’ll see her then.”

“Well, you be sure to tell her she’s your best friend so she knows, and give her a big hug. And maybe… maybe you can tell her you made a new friend. If that’s okay with your Dad.”

Mycroft glanced at Sally standing nearby, waiting for them. He looked at the piano man who had not become defensive or angry or mean when their son all unthinkingly peeled back his secrets.

“Perfectly fine,” said Mycroft.

Ford bounced on the seat then held up his hand for a high five, which piano man gave him with a deep laugh.

Mycroft withdrew a card from his wallet, scribbled on the back of it, and handed it to the piano man.

“Speak to this woman this afternoon, Charlie,” said Mycroft crisply, “I’m a member of a local establishment for visiting British dignitaries. They’re in need of a pianist for the bar. She’ll take you on for a few nights a week to begin, and the rest will be up to you. If that’s something you would like to do.”

Charlie the piano man shook Mycroft’s hand. “A chance is all I ask for.”

“Then make the most of it. Time to go, Sherrinford. Say goodbye to our new… friend.”

Goodbyes were said. Walking back to the waiting driver and car, Mycroft took out his phone and angled the screen so that Sally could see the swift background check he had somehow managed to request while spontaneously playing jazz piano with an unknown American.

“You think he’ll go?” she asked him.

“I’m sure of it. People can change, after all. They can… stop making scars in themselves, and make friends without realising it. It’s rare, but demonstrably possible.”

They climbed into the car and Ford sat with his face pressed to the window.

“I like Charlie,” Ford declared, “He’s got hair like me and Mummy and he plays almost as well as Daddy.”

“I like Charlie too,” said Sally.

Mycroft stroked Ford’s soft black curls with one hand, and held Sally’s fingers in his other, and thought for a moment about the invisible scars he used make on himself, and the surprising friends he now made instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that addiction doesn't necessarily work this way. But for some people it might. For Charlie and Sherlock, it could.


	6. California Science Center

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft and Sally take Ford to the California Science Center to see the space shuttle Endeavour. Ford realises something hugely important: so important he can't stop crying.

Ford was certainly interested in the California Space Center, but Sally had expected him to be tugging on their hands and trying to make them race through the exhibits until they reached the prize – the space shuttle Endeavour. The honest-to-god spaceship itself; not extra-terrestrial, but it _had_ been in outer space.

If not a determined dragging-by-the-hands, Sally had thought their boy would keep up a non-stop, chattering commentary on the other exhibits – a genuine Apollo capsule and replicas of other craft that had formed the American space program.

Instead, while Ford did indeed hold each parent’s hand, he walked slowly through the museum, looking at all the items suspended from ceilings and presented on daises, gazing at each in solemn wonder. He read the plaques and listened if volunteers were at hand to answer questions, but he wasn’t the one who asked them.

Sally and Mycroft exchanged looks, puzzled and concerned, but Ford wasn’t always predictable. Mycroft often told Sally of similar variabilities from Sherlock’s early life. Holmeses didn’t always process input in an expected way, the pathways of their thoughts so often darting off on tangents unclear until explained.

But Ford didn’t detour to the other exhibits on natural phenomena. He _did_ want to go on the short shuttle ‘ride’ that replicated the repair of the Hubble telescope and rattled about to mimic launch and re-entry. His brown eyes were hugely round and rapt at the images on the screen, and he ignored the other family in the second row of seats, where two kids and their dad all squealed and hooted with delight at the sensations.

In the enormous hangar where the Endeavour itself stood, Ford clung tightly to his mother’s hand, and his father’s. His gait peculiarly determined and hesitant, he walked them the length of the shuttle. He stared and stared and stared up until Mycroft lifted him to see the pitted underbelly more closely.

“Has this really been in space?” asked Ford.

“It really has,” Mycroft assured him, “Twenty-five times.”

Ford reached up high with his hand and wriggled his fingers, still too far away to touch, which wasn’t permitted anyway.

“It’s not a story,” said Ford in hushed wonder, “It really flew way up in space. It’s not just a story.”

“No sweetheart,” Sally said, her hand on his back as Mycroft held Ford in his arms, “It’s absolutely true.”

Ford bunched his hands into fists and held them pressed over his chest, panting a little, like he could breathe in the taste of stars and comets exuded by the craft, an emblem not only of scientific achievement but of the very best that human beings could be.

Sally could feel Ford starting to tremble. Mycroft let Ford slip lower in his grip so he could hug him. “Deep breaths, darling,” Mycroft told his son softly. “That’s it. Deep, and hold and out. That’s it.”

“ _It’s so big_ ,” Ford whispered, overwhelmed, “ _And it’s been in space_. _People have been in space in it_.”

“I know. Hold tight, now.”

Ford held his Daddy tight.

“We can come back tomorrow if it’s too much,” Sally said quietly to Mycroft, “We don’t fly home until the evening.”

“I want to stay,” protested Ford, his brow creasing. “I want to see the astronauts. They have pictures. I can see the pictures. Please. Please I want to stay and see…” His hands bunched into fists in Mycroft’s suit.

“Hush now, baby.” Sally got into Ford’s line of sight, so he couldn’t see the shuttle any more. “We can stay if you can be calm, okay?”

“Okay. But Mummy I want to see the astronauts.”

“I know. Breathe now, like Daddy says.”

Mycroft kissed Ford’s forehead. “Breathe in. And out. And in. Just like Mummy’s is showing you…” And she was, breathing in slow and deep, holding her son’s gaze with her own, and slowly out, pursing her lips to blow, for Ford to mimic.

“That’s good. Good boy.” Mycroft praised him and patted his back in slow, circular movements. Ford pressed his face into Mycroft’s neck and breathed slowly, like he’d been taught, like Mummy was doing, until the sick-dizzy feeling subsided.

“Please,” he said soft and calm, “May I see the pictures of the astronauts?”

Mycroft carried Ford to the edge of the hangar and put him down, and he and Sally proceeded to walk with him around the floor, hedging him in without crowding him. Ford inspected each information poster and read the names, and pointed things out to them, all with commendable calmness.

Until he found the poster for Mission STS-8. The Challenger, launched on 30 August 1983.

Until he found the photograph of the crew.

Ford gasped and reached out to press his fingers against the image of Guion Bluford, engineer and Mission Specialist. The first African American in space.

Ford patted and patted the picture, then reached to his own head to pat his curly black hair.

Then he took off, running, pausing by the next picture, then the next, then the next, at missions in the 1990s and the 2000s. At pictures of Frederick D Gregory and Ronald McNair and Mae Jemison and Bernard A Harris Jr and Robert Curbeam and  Michael P Anderson and Stephanie Wilson. He was laughing. Running and running, until he turned around – seeing Sally racing to catch him again – and he sat down right underneath the space shuttle Endeavour and began to cry - loud, racking sobs, with his fingers buried in the tight curls of his hair.

Sally and Mycroft both went to their knees to help him just as a security guard came to see what help she could offer.

“Sherrinford, breathe. Breathe.” Mycroft almost sounded panicked himself. Sally was desperate to gather Ford close to her, but knew that could sometimes make things worse. She reached for his hands instead, to make him stop pulling his hair.

But he wasn’t pulling; He was patting his own hair. Sobbing and gulping and laughing in between.

“I’m allowed,” said her little boy, “I can go. I can go.”

She and Mycroft realised at the same time what he meant.

“Of course you can go, sweetheart.”

“Of course you can, Sherrinford!” And no-one would know from the force with which he said it that coldness went from sole to crown of Mycroft Holmes’s body at the thought of his son traveling beyond the envelope of the Earth to where he couldn’t keep him safe.

“Everything all right here, folks?” asked the guard. She was respectful, courteous, ready to escort them to somewhere more suitable if required. She was African-American, with dark wavy hair.

The sobbing child beamed up at her. “We can go into space.” He reached up to pet her hair, which she held still and allowed, and then he patted his mother’s hair, then his own again. “They look like me and they were allowed, so I’m allowed!”

“Why, of course you’re allowed, honey!” The guard – her name was Jessy – said, beaming. “I bet you’d be a terrific astronaut.”

Ford nodded and cried and nodded and cried harder. “I like piano and” (he hiccupped) “I could be a janitor because it’s im-im-important” (more hiccups, another weirdly joyful sob “But I want to be a scientist in space and I can, I’m allowed. Even with my hair!”

“Why, whoever told you that you couldn’t? That’s just crazy talk, isn’t it? Look at you. I bet you’re real smart. I bet your parents are just so proud of you!”

Ford nodded vigorously. Mycroft’s expression of helpless alarm had morphed into relief, and he’d wrapped his arms around Ford’s body, while Sally (crying, crying, crying too) took Ford's hands in hers.

“We are,” Sally said, looking at Ford, speaking to Jessy, “We’re so proud of our Ford.”

Ford reached out to push his fingers into Sally’s hair again. “Mummy. I can go.”

“You can do anything, baby.”

He nodded and cried some more.

Mycroft cuddled him closer. “Breathe, Sherrinford. Come on now. Good boy. That’s it.”

Ford sobbed and took a breath and held it like he was taught, and when he breathed out again he sob-laughed.

“Can you tell me what’s happening, Sherrinford?” Mycroft asked, because that was something else they did, when Ford was overwhelmed. They encouraged him to try to explain, to wrap words around the feelings that were too too too much.

“I-I-I’m so h-h-h-happy,” Ford sobbed. Then he laughed and then he beamed up at his Daddy, tears all over his face.

And this was pure Sherrinford Holmes. This had never been Mycroft; this had never been Sherlock, so happy he had to cry because his body couldn’t contain how happy he was.

“We’re going to lie down with him a minute, if that’s okay,” said Sally quietly to Jessy, in a tone that did not expect any objection.

 “Take a minute with him, ma’am. Some kids do get awfully excited about it.” Jessy nodded sagely, as though this noisy fuss was just part of the routine. Perhaps it was.

Sally stretched out on the floor and Mycroft said, “There, Mummy needs a cuddle.” Ford sprawled against her, hugging, until Mycroft was on the floor next to them. Then Ford was squished between the two of them, each on their side and sheltering him with their bodies and their care.

Ford hiccupped on the floor, Mummy on his right side, Daddy on his left, building their Love Wall (that’s what they called it when  things got too much and he needed to not see so much). One hand was in Daddy’s shirt, one on Mummy’s face, and he looked up at the black-tiled belly of the space ship and grinned.

One day, one day, one day, he was going to go into space and be a scientist, and everything, and it was going to be _amazing_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Representation matters. In so many things, at so many times. It matters so much.  
> This chapter is dedicated to Nichelle Nichols, who made Whoopi Goldberg realise how much more she could be, too.


	7. Bowie Station, Mars.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The year is 2047. The place is Mars. Ford Holmes is there with Violet Morstan-Watson, their son Hamish: a dream fulfilled.

The International Space Agency Mars Colony Project Terraforming Habitat 1 – universally known as Bowie Station – was in its night cycle, but not everyone was sleeping. Skeleton crews monitored the sand storms; a few tended the algae vats which generated both oxygen and protein for the base; others pinged the other stations ranged about Amazonis Planitia: Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust and White Duke Stations.

Here in Bowie Station’s biodome, where the terraformers experimented with crops and plants, a little family was waiting on the wide paths between rows of tulasi trees, bamboo, and mango trees that had only produced small, hard, inedible fruit to date. The sky over the clear-roofed biodome was dark and studded with stars. Sunrise was over an hour away, but Earthrise was due in minutes.

Sherrinford Holmes lay on his back on the path. Beside him, Violet Morstan-Watson was a warm presence. Between them was their two-year-old son, Hamish. He had been fractious when they’d brought him here for a walk to inhale the perfumes of earth and leaf, but he’d settled now and stared up at the sky with his parents. His eyes tracked one of the biodome BugEyes, the surveillance cameras that ran on tracks all over the hundred by hundred and fifty metre garden to monitor its health and progress.

“Here they come,” whispered Ford. He reached across to hook pinkie fingers with Violet, and turned his head to kiss his son’s shoulder. “Get ready!”

The bright blue-hued ball of planet Earth become visible above the reinforced lip of the biodome walls.

“Wave hello, ‘Mish,” said Violet. She raised her free hand and waggled her fingers at it. Ford did too, and Hamish raised his two hands and clenched and unclenched his fists in flexed greetings at the planet where he was born.

“Hello out there Mum and Dad. Rupe and Sherlock,” whispered Violet to the sky, “I hope you’re all keeping each other into just enough trouble.”

Ford laughed softly and curled his pinkie so she could feel it. He nudged his nose against Hamish’s face.

“Look, Hamish,” he urged, “That’s where your Grandies and Grammies live. Say hello!”

“’Lo!” carolled Hamish, “Grandies! Grammies! Hello!”

The BugEye whirred overhead, sending photos, sound and video of the family to Bowie Station’s main computers and, from there – thanks to a series of protocols established a long time ago by a certain government department – to a not-quite-retired, not-quite-minor government official in London. Moments after he received it, it would be shared with the whole extended family.

“Want to sing the song?” Ford asked.

“Grandy ‘Lock, Grandy John, Grandy Coft,” burbled Hamish in a happily tuneless shout, “Grammie Sal, Grammie Maaaare, Grammie Oooop!” He waved his arms and legs and laughed.

His parents giggled at how silly it was, and they lay on their backs in the earthrise dark and waved at their family.

Finally, Violet wriggled a little closer to Ford, while between them Hamish stared at his own wiggling fingers and murmured the names of his grandparents to himself, pleased with the sound they made.

“Is this what you imagined it would be like, when you were little?” Violet asked Ford.

“It’s greener, and I didn’t predict this little grub,” said Ford, tickling Hamish’s belly to make him giggle some more,  “But mostly, yeah. I do science, I play violin sometimes, I have to clean up after myself, and you’re here with me. It’s almost exactly what I imagined.” He nuzzled the tip of his nose into Hamish’s dark hair.

“I never doubted for a second you’d make it here.” Violet gazed at her boys with almost unbearable affection. “Even when you were making a hundred plans for other things you wanted to do with your life. You always, always talked about Mars.”

“I doubted it,” confessed Ford, “For about a week.”

“Really?”

“Yeah I had a stupid fight with a boy at the Griffith Observatory, so he told me they didn’t let black kids into space.”

“Little shit. If I’d been there I’d have kicked him in the shins.”

Ford grinned. Mean + mean did not equal fair, he knew, but there were other equations that held true for their family. One of which was that mean might be met with something else fierce and protective.

“I have no idea why I took it to heart. It seemed really important at the time. It doesn’t matter now. I realised he was wrong.”

“Good.” Violet looked at Hamish, who had now subsided into dozy calm between them. “Do you think he’ll be an astronaut? Assuming he doesn’t count as one already.”

“He’ll be whatever he wants to be,” said Ford with calm conviction.

Violet grinned. “Yeah. He will. Maybe he’ll be a mad scientist too.” She shifted to prop herself up on an elbow so that she could lean down to kiss Hamish’s light brown skin, gaze into his bright blue eyes, bump her nose into his dark, wavy hair. Then she leaned across their son to kiss Ford.

She snuggled beside him, head on his shoulder, her hand on Hamish’s chest, Ford’s hand over hers, holding their little boy safe between them.

The BugEye took more photos and sent them all the way back Earthside, to the family who’d always known that their children could and would do absolutely anything they had a mind for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back home in Australia after 3 weeks in the US. I had a great time!

**Author's Note:**

> You can read about my US adventures on my blog [Mortal Words.](https://narrellemharris.wordpress.com/)


End file.
